Sonia's Television Blog

After completing my shoot I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about it. Looking back at the footage I am happy with the amount of material I have but not so sure about the story or what I managed to get out of the contributors. Originally I was not looking forward to looking back at my footage, mostly the main reason for that is that I will critique my own work and not like it. Then again there is ALWAYS room for improvement, nothing is perfect. What I wish that I had done a little differently was really focus on the shoot and not to get distracted by the weather or my sickness. When I arrived in Poland I ended up getting really Ill and this had a major impact on my footage, that can be clearly seen! Because I was feeling under the weather and visited the doctors on location I was feeling very unmotivated to film but my crew kept me going.  When I first imported the clips into Adobe I had no idea where to start, I filmed a lot of material over 90gb of footage. This made me very c...

Fifth and final day of shooting Life in Kamtsang. Today I spent the entire day filming with my father. We began shooting at one of the buildings that we used to live in, he was showing me around the Drupkang and how much time we spent in the building. One issue I had with filming there was that it was simply too dark! We had LED aperture kit but since the shots were handheld and we were moving about they became useless, I decided to leave them out and hopefully can brighten it in the edit. I also was feeling very unwell from the beginning of the day, worried that I'd have a raspy voice during filming. As you can see from the photos the building had a yellow tint and I was wearing black which really didn't go together and made the overall look a little horrible. When looking over the clips at the end of the day I was happy that I had other shots. Later on we went on to film more actuality shots around the community before It started raining since the weather started to look a ...

Today it started off with my father actually showing up late to the shoot, I was getting worried that he isn't going to show but he did. We started filming later then scheduled, I originally wanted to have a sit down conversation with my Dad but by the way he was being that wasn't going to happen. So we decided to firstly go out into the town and chat to each other while filming actuality shots together. This was more so he get's to feel more comfortable around me and the camera since I knew that he felt uncomfortable. I also decided to do a few handheld shots around the community and town centre with him, this way I was sure to have enough footage for my edit. I was a bit worried to start asking deep questions since I knew how he was feeling, very secluded.  I then moved onto our next interview which was with Lama Rinchen, the owner of the community. I was actually very excited to film with him since he is a very friendly individual and knows the most about the histor...

Today was the day I started officially filming with Izabella, I wanted to spend the entire day with her since the weather was still working in our favour. My father on the other hand was nowhere to be found, I was actually starting to get worries since the next few days I would be filming with him.  Anyhow I worked with my small crew to start filming while Izabella was on her shift in the C Block. We had a casual sit down together and just started talking for hours, this was great because it felt relaxed and natural which is what I hope to portray within the edit. Although I did feel a little disconnected from Izabella sinec I haven't since her for over 10 years, we used to have a very strong connection. When filming in the C Block we did have few interruptions since Izabella was currently working. This didn't stop us re-recording a few times since what she was saying was very helpful and I was happy with it. We then took a break just like the script/plan stat...

Today turned out to be a very relaxing discussion day with my contributors. I wanted to talk to them before I started any filming; making sure it doesn't feel forced or awkward. I started off being introduced to Lama Rinchen and community workers. I've realised that a lot of these people had not recognised me and did not remember my contribution to the community. I am shocked by this, and a little bit upset since I spent most of my life here. This has now worried me due to the documentary being based around my memories here with my dad. Never the less I carried on speaking with each and every person jogging everyone memories back. Izabella actually helped me with this since she remembers most moments I've had here. I also started to prepare Izabella for the filming that will be done throughout the rest of the week.  I also made sure to have all equipment charged up and ready for filming such as the Tascam and extra cannon batteries. I did come across a problem, the Rode m...

Today was the first day of my project beginning, my flight was at 6 am making sure I get to the location at a good time to start filming. Travelling with a very small crew and a lot of equipment is very challenging not to say the least, but also feels rewarding knowing I am working this hard to achieve the best final project I can. After getting picked from the airport and driven to the community I was hit with instant nostalgia. Seeing the community and so much change really made me feel like I've been gone for over decades, but in fact it was exactly 10 years since I've visited the community.  I did not waste anytime when I got onto location. Instantly I went into my room started unpacking and set up to  start filming. I knew the weather would not be great for the rest of the week so I wanted to take advantage of the nice sunny weather that had appeared on the day I arrive. On this day I decided to get all of my fillers and cinematic shots before the weather...

Since the community had been my home for many years I didn't really require any permission from anyone to visit or film at the location as long as my contributors are happy to participate.  Of course I got in contact with Izabella and Lama Rinchen to double check when they are available for me to visit, I originally wanted to film in February but neither of them were available so we confirmed for March. In regards to my father he had to drive to the community at the best day that suited him, I just had to let him know when would be best. I was very surprised that he agreed since he did not want to film with me in December, that was originally when I was supposed to film his take in the documentary, so I was slightly worried that he wouldn't s how.  I am lucky enough to get Izabella to pick us up from the airport and drop us off as well as organising our stay at the community for the time being which I was very thankful for. Travel...

When speaking with Simon I had expressed to him the troubles I was having with the script, it was something I was really struggling with. Simon then reassured me that I don't need an official script but something that is leading me the right path so I'm organised and planned ahead for my shoot. I was really stressing out because of this reason, I was worried I wouldn't be prepared enough for it. I then decided to stop worrying about my script since in a documentary no one sticks to what I had written, I can' t possibly know what the answers will be to my questions. I needed to make a plan a schedule, in my pre-production package I had made one but it wasn't good enough to give to my crew members and contributors to give them a rough idea of what is going to happen. I was looking on google to find some sort of template for my schedule and I found a fantastic example. It was key for me to know the information on what will happen on the shoot as well as having some b...

Flights and Flights  We live in an era, when travelling places is taken for granted. Not only cars, even planes are nowadays seen as pretty cheap if not the cheapest way to reach a certain destination. But what does it actually take or what is taken away by low cost airlines in order to offer a reasonable transport alternative for working class people? To find out more about this interesting topic and also to satisfy my travelling soul I decided to watch and review Flights and Fights – Inside The Low Cost Airline documentary. You can immediately sense that the primary purpose of this documentary was to show the day to day life of those included in low cost travelling (employees, owners and passengers) as it is, the main focus of the producers was therefore a well told story, glamor and excessive production expenses were being avoided for the majority of the film. Its structure consists of two main parts; interviews and actuality shots – that tried to accurately (som...

Over the time that I have been with the course I was very familiar with the risk assessments but this was the first time I had to do one for overseas filming. When originally filling in my risk assessment I had emails back and forth telling me there is not enough information, I decided to speak with Helen who has filmed abroad and she gave me a few tips in how to filled the paper work in correctly and in depth.  After making all necessary amendments I finally managed to get the risk assessment signed off. I didn't actually realise how important it was to get this assessment filled in correctly. As I am being multi-skilled on this project and flying overseas to make it a reality I have to be responsible for all kinds of risks that have to be outlined. I had to do a little bit of research online with this as I had no idea what kinds of risk I could be facing, it was interesting to see external sources write about hundreds of different types of risks that can occ...

Since I am multi-skilling on my production it is crucial that the shoot goes well, I have a crew on hand but all choices will be made by m e. Preparing for the shoot is very important and how I act during this project since I cannot organise a re-shoot. Following after my research into the contributors and making sure they are happy to participate I had to confirm that my crew was still happy to go ahead with the trip. I lost 2 crew members throughout the way but I still had 2 guaranteed ones. I started to feel the pressure of working on my own, I knew I could do it but it started to get to me. Knowing that I have to be in charge of all the roles, Simon did stress this to me but I think I'm going to feel rewarded when I complete my project.  Budget - My budget was secured since I set up a Go-fund me last years, all travel was paid for and I was happy with the amount of funds that I had to go ahead with.  Crew - As I mentioned above 2 crew members dropped out on me, but I...